The Specialist Register is a list of doctors who are legally entitled to take up honorary, substantive or fixed term consultant posts in the NHS and is maintained by the General Medical Council (GMC).

Hospital doctors are included onto the Specialist Register after they have been awarded either a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) or a Certification of Eligibility for Specialist Registration (CESR).

View e-learning module for more information:

http://www.maguiretraining.co.uk/healthcare/certificate-of-eligibility-for-specialist-registration/

Doctors who wish to join the specialist register who have not followed a full approved GMC training programme but who may have gained the same level of skills and knowledge as CCT holders, can apply for a CESR.

If your CESR application is successful, you will be awarded the certificate and entered onto the Specialist Register.

Benefits of gaining access to the Specialist Register

Specialist Registration is the hallmark of a doctor who requires no further training to practice independently and acts as the best assurance to the public that a doctor is qualified to practice without supervision.

Specialist registration provides recognition to other doctors that an individual is fit to practice as a specialist and enables that individual to apply for honorary, substantive or fixed term consultant posts in the NHS.

Almost 10% of UK SAS doctors are on the specialist register. Unfortunately being on the register is no guarantee of a consultant post but it is a necessary part of the process.

Who manages the CESR application process?

The GMC oversee the application process to CESR. The Post Graduate Medical Education Training Board (PMETB) was merged with the GMC in 2010, which means the GMC is now responsible for regulating all stages of medical education in the UK.

One of its functions is to decide whether doctors are eligible to be included in the Specialist Register through the equivalence pathway.